Love at First Rifle Sight
by Svendances
Summary: A classic love at first sight story with a twist. Will he get the girl? Or will someone get him first? Alternate POV. Possible character death (we'll see how it pans out).


_I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!_

_So I had this idea for a story aaaaaaaages ago in the middle of the night. But I never felt enough drive to actually write it, so it just stayed there in the dark corner at the back of my mind waiting patiently. Until this weekend. I spent upwards of ten hours in a car with my parents between Saturday and Sunday, and in that time wrote the first chapter of this story that has been playing on my mind. Hope you enjoy it._

**Love at First Rifle Sight**

I've been crouched on the roof of the building across from The Target's place of work and residence for five whole hours. A total of twenty seven black vehicles have passed through the gate to the underground parking garage in either direction. None were the low slung sports car I'd been hoping for – it would give me great pleasure to destroy such an ostentatious car – and none contained The Target.

Knowing my luck, he was having one of his rare office days where he didn't leave the building. The information I had been given – the result of a month of benign surveillance – stated that of the almost thirty days they folled him he did not leave the building on only two of them. Just my luck that my first day would be one of these frustratingly futile days.

I'd just pulled out my phone to call Huey and place my lunch order when a loud bang nearby made me jump. I almost dropped the device over the barrier as I craned my neck to see what had just happened at street level.

My gaze caught on the plume of smoke dispersing behind a rather sorry looking car of indeterminate make, model and colour. The car itself was making rough choking noises, intermingling with the loud thumping music – probably turned up as far as it would go to cover the horrible death cries of the vehicle – and the squealing of fan belts ready to snap. It was a miracle it was still managing to move forward, jerky though the movements may be.

As if prompted by my very thoughts, another loud eruption sent smoke firing from the exhaust and everything went silent. Not for long though. The moment the driver had used the remaining momentum to ease to the curb, she was out on the sidewalk, swearing up a storm and flailing her arms around angrily.

Visibility was poor due to the smoke now leaking from under the bonnet to join what had already exploded from the other end, but I reached for my rife to use the sight to get a better look at her anyway. Given the state of the car she was attempting to drive and the location she was trying to get it to, it was entirely possible that she was The Woman.

The Woman was the only known female associate of The Target in the Trenton area. She was identifiable by her wild, curly hair, clear blue eyes, POS car and nosey nature. Bernie and Louis had had to do some quick thinking on a couple of occasions when she'd caught them staring at her. On one such occasion they'd been attempting to trail her through Macy's and she'd actually approached them to see if they needed help finding something.

I'd only seen grainy, low definition photos of The Woman, but I was pretty sure this was her.

She was stunning. Bernie and Louis had described her as a wreck, barely worth a second glance. They'd been unimpressed by her appearance and confused as to how any self-respecting man with as much money and power as The Target obviously had could be so infatuated by her. Not to mention The Cousin, The Men, and even The Cop.

I decided, in those first seconds as I drank in one flawless detail after another, that Bernie and Louis wouldn't know if their asses were alight. The Woman was one of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I'd always told myself that I would know my true lover when I saw her, and this was her. She was the one. Love at first sight.

One of her hands had stopped flailing in the time it took me to redirect my sight, and I realised she was holding her phone to her ear. Barely a minute later, two large men dressed entirely in black emerged from the building to join her by her bomb of a car. One greeted The Woman with a grin and a shake of the head, immediately moving to inspect the poor vehicle. The other, whom I recognised as The Target's cousin, slung his arm over The Woman's shoulder and began what appeared to be an easy conversation.

A bubble of annoyance inflated in my chest that he could treat her so casually. I had to lay my rifle aside to keep from giving him a nice new hole in the head. I was here for The Target. Any casualties before I managed to take him down would just give away my position. And that could be detrimental both to the mission and my health. I'd been given only a week to get this done. If I failed to fly under the radar on my first day, Father would kill me faster than you can utter _Tá an fear sa chuisneoir _(Irish for "The man is in the fridge")_. _Which, ironically, is what would then happen to me until the next Graveyard Shift began.

We take the Grave Shift literally in my family. If you got Graveyard Shift you were literally lowering corpses into the ground. Or ocean, or river, or meat grinder…

I took some deep breaths to calm myself down as the man looking at the car made a defeated gesture and they lead The Woman inside.

Cue more waiting.

Picking up my phone once more, I managed to get Huey's number punched in before I was distracted by the garage gate opening again. I trained my rifle on the car that came out while listening to the canned ringing on speaker.

"Dewey!" Huey greeted enthusiastically, just as I'd determined that neither of the occupants of the SUV were The Target. Nor The Woman, for that matter. "Done already?"

"No sign of him," I stated. "Just The Woman, and The Cousin. I could use a Big Mac, large fries and strawberry thickshake."

"So go for a drive and get some food," Huey suggested, reminding me once again why Father had made him Chief Gopher, instead of assigning him to active duty like the rest of us kids. He never was all that bright.

"And risk The Target making an appearance while I'm away?" I asked pointedly.

A short thinking-silence passed, during which I could pretty much _hear_ the cogs in head turning before he replied, "Maybe I should grab it and bring it to you."

"Good idea," I told him, only just managing to keep the sarcasm from my tone. "I'll see you in twenty minutes." I hung up before he could change his mind, and returned my focus to the front of the building.

I'd given up on an appearance from The Target around midnight and gone back to my hotel to get some rest. Bernie was set to keep watch through the night with instructions to call me if The Target left the building. Louis was at street level ready to tail in such a case, taking over from Francis from the day shift.

The Woman had not made a reappearance before my shift ended and, according to Bernie, still hadn't left when we met up for the changing of the guard at eight the next morning.

The Target hadn't either, but that was of less interest to me at that point in time. I may have been dispatched to off The Target, but after catching sight of The Woman, it was a secondary goal. I had to see her again. In fact, I had to make contact with her. Surely she was just as beautiful in person as she was through the rifle sight, but I had to check.

I didn't have to wait too long today before The Target emerged from his building. I was on him immediately, like white on rice. Gun trained, trigger finger poised. But I hesitated. He was driving, and in the passenger seat was The Woman. If I applied the direct hit like I was supposed to, control of the vehicle would be lost and The Woman would be relatively helpless to do anything about it as it crashed. I couldn't do that to her.

Hitting the button on my earpiece to open communications with Francis, I wove a quick bullshit story about not being able to get a clear shot, all the while packing up my equipment so I could follow as soon as possible. I'd keep the line open while Francis was in pursuit so I could catch up.

Probably, I should invest in a partner so I can ride shot gun (literally) and be ready to fire at any given moment. I'll have to run it past Father, and maybe call Huey in when I have a chance. He'd love being involved in the take down for once.

"Speak to me Francis," I requested as I threw my equipment onto the passenger seat of my beat up truck and made sure the hand gun was in reach. "Where are we headed?"

"Looks like he's taking The Woman home," Francis replied in my ear.

"Keep me posted."

The key to a car chase, or tailing someone, or attempting to get through town as fast as possible, is to avoid traffic lights wherever possible. And don't draw attention to yourself. As I sped through back streets and cut through parking lots now, I could hear my father's voice as echoing through the years from my very first car chase lessons as a teen.

"You're going too fast, Dewey," he would inform me calmly. "Speed, yes, but only to the point where it's believable that you didn't realise your were over the limit if the cops pull you over." His advice had kept me flying under the radar for almost twenty years so far. That and the beating Huey had received after his third speeding ticket.

I careened around one last corner and found myself in the same street as Francis, who promptly turned off at the next intersection so that we didn't give ourselves away. The only thing worse than a one car tail in broad daylight is a multi-car tail in broad daylight. The more cars following, the more likely you were to be noticed.

Francis would be nearby in case he was needed, probably keeping to parallel streets as he followed my tracker on his GPS, but for now it was up to me.

The Target was a block and a half ahead. Close enough that I could keep my eyes on him, but far enough away that he couldn't see my face. He threw on his blinker to turn and, realising that they'd reached The Woman's apartment building, I took an early turn off and paused a minute in the back street, giving them enough time to park and make their way inside, before taking the next side street.

The empty SUV was in the parking lot just as I'd hoped – Bernie had mentioned that no matter who took The Woman home or what time of the day or night it was, they would escort her up to her apartment and return several minutes later. Predictable actions were always helpful when planning an assassination.

I found an inconspicuous place to park and had enough time to climb inside the dumpster with my rifle to give myself a little more cover as I waited for The Target to reappear.

And just my luck, The Woman was still with him. I couldn't kill him in front of her. Not when I was this close to the situation. There would be no opportunity to escape. I'd made an error in my location choice.

"Target and Woman on the move," I informed Francis. "Heading south. Will follow when convenient."

The next time I caught up with The Woman – I'd left Francis to tail The Target – she was apparently working on some kind of door knock appeal version of fugitive apprehension I'd never seen before. I followed her to three separate streets where she knocked on the door of six houses, had a short conversation with the resident, handed them her card and moved on. From there, she made her way to one last house and knocked on the door as usual. The resulting interaction, however, was vastly dissimilar to the previous ones I'd observed.

After a sort explanation from The Woman, the hairy, shirtless man turned and dashed back inside. The Woman followed, but a moment later the man was barrelling through the front door, heading for the dull green Volkswagen Beetle. I kept my gaze divided between the man and the door, waiting for The Woman to re-emerge. When she eventually did, though she was stumbling and appeared to be wiping blood or tomato sauce (it really was hard to tell) from her face, and the man was still fumbling with his keys.

I made the split second decision to significantly slow the man down by shoot a tranq dart into the side of his neck.

Now I had the dilemma of speeding of and risking being seen by The Woman as I either zoomed past her down the street, or made a quick U-turn, sitting in the truck like a bump on a log and hoping that she somehow didn't see and put two and two together, or hiding.

Lucky for me, my truck was modified to allow extra space in the footwels for just this kind of occurrence. As the hairy man made a comically slow descent, I ducked down out of view, reaching up only to crack the window so I could hear.

"Did you assign babysitting detail without telling me?" came the gorgeously smooth voice, marred only by the Jersey accent that had always grated my ear. I was sure I could learn to love it if it was constantly accompanied by that spine tingling resonance though. "Ooohh kay then," she said now, a slight quiver to her voice. She was nervous. That was my fault, I realised. "There's a dart sticking out of my FTA's neck… No one I can see, but that doesn't mean… But what about my… Okay, I'm moving. I'll be at Rangeman in fifteen."

Drat. I should have known she'd be suspicious of a dart that suddenly rendered her FTA unconscious when there was no one else around. I should have just let him get away. It was entirely possible that that one dart had blown the entire case. Father would never forgive me if that happened. I'd have to be more careful.

_Just so you are all aware, I have not forgotten about Little Wolf, I just haven't really been in the mood for writing (until two days ago). Nor have I forgotten about Not As Planned (That's a lie. I HAD forgotten until I signed into my account for the first time in months and saw it there... eek). I will get back to them eventually. Don't worry. Okay, worry a little..._


End file.
